Category Archives: News

DUNCAN FEATURED IN THE GUARDIAN

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The case for never demolishing another building

Full article

This week Duncan has been featured in the Guardian’s article which discusses the current state of the construction industry which is creating huge CO2 emissions. What if new buildings had to be adapted and reused or built only with materials already available? The article discusses how mindsets are shifting.   
Photo credit: Omar Marques/Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media

While much of mainland Europe is well on the way to reimagining buildings as “urban mines” of potential, the UK is slowly beginning to catch up. Architect Duncan Baker-Brown, who published the Re-Use Atlas in 2017, says the subject has gone from being a niche pursuit to something being discussed at high level in the last year.

“Since Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion, the industry is starting to wake up,” he says. “National legislation is still way behind, but a lot of local authorities are getting on with it anyway.” He has been working with Brighton and Hove council to instil circular principles into the way local procurement works, and will be running an architectural summer school looking at how waste streams can be harvested from one of the council’s demolition sites and reused. In a welcome sign of progress, the new London Plan will require planning applications to include a Circular Economy Statement, demonstrating how the building components can be disassembled and reused.

ELIMINATING CONSTRUCTION WASTE

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Duncan was part of the panel for “Eliminating Construction Waste” last month.

Panelists: Robert Crocker and Duncan Baker-Brown


The panelists spoke about how to present linear model followed in design and construction can be modified and replaced with a more circular model. They also paid particular attention to the role of information technology in conjunction with sustainable waste management systems to better enable the reuse of materials like timber, glass and steel, and the vital importance of changing inappropriate regulation and of training and engaging designers to lead this process.

Organised on 29th Oct, 2019. Construction materials represent around 40% of all materials used in most advanced economies, and construction and demolition (C & D) waste makes up around 25% -30% of waste sent to landfill. This results in millions of tons of C & D waste being buried every year, representing huge losses in embodied energy, water and materials. In many jurisdictions the ‘linear’ expectations embodied in design and construction practice and regulation undermine the feasibility of more fully re-using construction materials.

DUNCAN BAKER-BROWN INVITED TO SPEAK AT MUSEUM OF FINNISH ARCHITECTURE

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As part of the Durat Talks series, Duncan Baker-Brown will be speaking about the circular economy and how the construction industry can transition to sustainable development. His talk is titled Circular Design and the Climate Crisis – Solutions for Designers.

As part of the Durat Talks series, Duncan Baker-Brown will be speaking about the circular economy and how the construction industry can transition to sustainable development. His talk is titled Circular Design and the Climate Crisis – Solutions for Designers.

The Museum of Finnish Architecture, one of Finland’s national museums, collects and distributes knowledge about architecture to both the public and industry experts. The museum records history, but also looks to the future with its events and exhibitions.

To sign up for the event, please click here: http://www.mfa.fi/durat-talks or here: https://www.facebook.com/events/258614315034102/?active_tab=discussion

PLANNING APPROVAL RECEIVED FOR PROPOSED REPLACEMENT DWELLING IN RINGMER

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BBM’s design for a replacement dwelling for a family home in Ringmer with serious subsidence issues was granted planning approval.

The existing house is a detached dwelling built in the early 1920’s, originally built as a farmhouse for an adjacent dairy farm. BBM’s redesign uses local forms of rural domestic architecture as precedents for the form, reincarnating the original essence of the existing dwelling.

A GLIMMER OF ENVIRONMENTAL HOPE

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Duncan-Baker Brown interviewed by Graham Lawton in the 9th November issue of New Scientist

In the column, Lawton reviews the progress made on environmental issues in the UK since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced last year that drastic changes were needed to avoid catastrophic global warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celcius. Lawton notes that while in general we in the UK haven’t made much progress towards preventing world-altering levels of global warming, the architecture industry has taken some positive steps.

A new organisation, the Architects’ Climate Action Network (ACAN), was set up to find ways to rapidly lower the carbon footprint of the construction industry. The impact this organisation could have is enormous. As Duncan Baker-Brown says in the article “architects specify what buildings are made of, and can therefore decide to make them out of environmentally benign stuff.”

Some architecture practices have even started dedicating a day a week to staff workshops considering how to make their daily work environmentally neutral or even beneficial.